My wandering subconscious wrote:I was in a place that at first seemed like an exhibition opening in an art gallery. Immediately upon entering, we guests were faced with a display of GLR's work, set in the middle of a long white wall. It was an evening about celebrating something he had done, but I'm fuzzy on exactly what that thing was. It might have been Time itself, but I don't think so. Maybe it was Time 2, or it could have been one of the TimeAfterTimes (yeah, I know. A dream, remember?) I think frames were playing in a small bright viewer, and there were other bits on display that I can't remember at all, but that may have included things like What If books and the Hugo, glowing reviews and early sketches. What did stick in my brain was a narrow shelf at about eye-level with a row of beautiful and colourful cupcakes. I have the impression that these somehow depicted frames in the celebrated work, and the competing impression that they were decorated with wavy stripes of stiff frosting rising delicately up and to the right, maybe three inches or so (~8cm), with each cupcake having a different colour frosting. Somehow this display celebrated and summed up the achievement, and all the effort that went into it, so beautifully that I got all choked up looking at it.

At some point, the space behind the long white wall started seeming less like an art gallery and more like a great Mexican restaurant the Little Wonder and I frequent, but kitted out for this private function with couches and dim, let's-have-a-drink lighting. The GLR was there, and I hope he was enjoying himself, but unfortunately I don't think many folks were talking to him. I'm not sure whether it was because they were intimidated or because they were just the wrong people to appreciate the opportunity. They weren't OTTers. I think many were just people who live around here. One I remember in particular is a giant of a Welshman with the singing voice of an angel and a personal connection to Taixzo's avatar. He kept kinda staring at the OTA from different angles without saying anything, and I tried to cut through the awkwardness by introducing them. I'm not sure how well it worked though, because I think I woke up around then.

Hm. Dream...or prophesy? Maybe there's a GLR museum in the future. Maybe one of us should create one! With an attached Mexican restaurant.

Forgot to say I also enjoyed balthaseer's RELATED dream.

Happy RNM to slinches and the other recent RNM celebrators. I forget who xey were.

The question about the volume of the liquid was mostly facetious, since I knew there are many unknowns. I was just thinking that it seemed like a pretty decent flow that had been going on for a while. I was wondering how much more the truck could hold. But it's true, it could have stopped while we weren't looking.

I too was convinced that reflection was not in the scene before, but I'll be darned if it isn't there at the edge of the frame. mscha, your animations are incredibly helpful.

mrob27 wrote:

Tell us what you would do with a magic truck,which might contain a portal, or unusually viscous liquid.

I read that as "an unusually vicious liquid." In the first case, if the liquid was honey, I certainly wouldn't be dumping in the water. In the second case, I suppose I would lock it up in a vicious-liquid-proof facility, and save it to use in case of a zombie apocalypse.

Tell us what you would do with a magic truck,which might contain a portal, or unusually viscous liquid.

I read that as "an unusually vicious liquid." In the first case, if the liquid was honey, I certainly wouldn't be dumping in the water. In the second case, I suppose I would lock it up in a vicious-liquid-proof facility, and save it to use in case of a zombie apocalypse.

Preview edit: steakish ottification, Sustainabilizer!

"Unusually vicious liquid" is VHF's new hit single.

Pre-edit: ninja'd by Whizbang. Haven't been ninja'd in a whaile.

BlitzGirl the NextBlitzGirl the FastKnight TemporalBringer of the Light

Got some more videos of the hiddenONGs. Up to remapt-1_0361, at 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12 fps.Please check them out and tell me which one looks best, timing-wise.Remember we can make certain frames or ranges go slower or faster than the others.

Tell us what you would do with a magic truck,which might contain a portal, or unusually viscous liquid.

I read that as "an unusually vicious liquid." In the first case, if the liquid was honey, I certainly wouldn't be dumping in the water. In the second case, I suppose I would lock it up in a vicious-liquid-proof facility, and save it to use in case of a zombie apocalypse.

Preview edit: steakish ottification, Sustainabilizer!

"Unusually vicious liquid" is VHF's new hit single.

Pre-edit: ninja'd by Whizbang. Haven't been ninja'd in a whaile.

I've never been ninja'd in a whale. Never even been in a whale, except for this one.

Spoiler:

Fun fact: It was always exciting when Kennywood Park, our local amusement park, finally opened up for the summer. People would say, "Kennywood's open!" Somehow, over time, "Kennywood's open" became a signal for letting someone know that their fly was open.

And I've been preview ninja'd too! Treeish!

ETA Lu, I can't see the videos. I mean, I see the transport controls and progress bar, but then I just see a white box. : (

I think that's the same ride at a different park. There were several Noah's Ark rides at one point, now there are just two--the one at Kennywood and one in Blackpoint, England.

ETA Oh, that's the Disney whale, isn't it? Monstro, I believe his name is. Can you walk inside it, though? I can't remember.

Yes, Monstro. You take a boat through. It's the Storybook Land Canal Ride.

I'm obviously overdue for a trip to Disneyland.

Hey, we could make a Time theme park. It would include the giant hammock, the Forty raft ride, the Beanie's boat, the Chateau d'If (that would be a dark ride), Zanclean Escape (a roller coaster), Lucky Attack!, Trip through the BlueCave...

ETA and it would be the perfect home for the OTA museum and Mexican restaurant that ggh dreamed about!

AluisioASG wrote: Got some more videos of the hiddenONGs. Up to remapt-1_0361, at 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12 fps.Please check them out and tell me which one looks best, timing-wise.Remember we can make certain frames or ranges go slower or faster than the others.

I like 5 fps best, except for the scenes with the trucks (t-1enh_0111 through t-1enh_0203, and t-1enh_0254 through the current) which I think would be best at about 3 fps. (2 fps is too slow). Also, I think it would be good for the first and last frame of each "scene" to be slower. When the scene is about to change, I need extra time to see the last frame so I don't miss anything, and I also need extra time to see the first frame of a new scene. (FWIW, I viewed them on Chrome 42.0.something and everything worked fine.)

For the Time theme park: In Molpyland there is a safari tour where you get driven through miles of barren terrain and have to try to spot the molpies. At the end you can buy little fluffy molpy toys. They're like Beanie Babies except only in shades of gray or black, and filled with black pixels. In the centre of the park is a giant lake, with the world's largest wave generator. There are of course plenty of beaches and daily sandcastle contests (with three age categories and beginner/advanced divisions). The raft ride starts in the lake and paradoxically goes up a river (like the Jungle Cruise, the raft is being pulled along a track). The raft turns from time to time so everyone has a chance to call their part the front. Zanclean Escape is the world's only amphibious roller-coaster: every rider must put on SCUBA gear to breathe during the underwater portions of the ride. My favourite area would probably be Botopia, because of its focus on technology. You ride a bicycle onto a train, which then goes into a rocket, that takes you to the Moon. (It doesn't have to make sense to be fun!). At the end of the ride they sell you a USB flash drive with a picture taken of you during the ride, except the picture is blank, unless you decode the colour table. The bicycle-train-rocket ride exits into a large pavillion full of screens and odd-looking machinery. You can interact with future and past images of yourself, that are cleverly produced with the aid of countless videocameras and holographic projectors placed around the park. When you get home you discover old emails that were sitting in your inbox for months, sent to you by yourself, and saying that if you ever go to the Time theme park you should bring the pictures that you left under the leopard on your desk. Then you lift it up and find photos of yourself standing between Cuegan, taken in Main Street ᘝᓄᘈᖉᐣ near the entrance to OTTityland.

— mrob27

(Edit: Slight elaboration on the raft ride, formatting, and "OTTityland". You can see what I originally wrote in @lmjb1964's post below)

NewPixBots got ready to activate, they underwent a lightning transformation. In a nanosecond, their little metal eyes turned red, and they began to devour castles. The King was completely unprepared for this.

mrob27 wrote:For the Time theme park: In Molpyland there is a safari tour where you get driven through miles of barren terrain and have to try to spot the molpies. At the end you can buy little fluffy molpy toys. They're like Beanie Babies except they're filled with black pixels. In the centre of the park is a giant lake, with the world's largest wave generator. There are of course plenty of beaches and daily sandcastle contests (with three age categories and beginner/advanced divisions). The raft ride starts in the lake and paradoxically goes up a river (like the Jungle Cruise, the raft is actually being pulled along a track). Zanclean Escape is the world's only amphibious roller-coaster: every rider must put on SCUBA gear to breathe during the underwater portions of the ride. My favourite area would probably be Botopia, because of its focus on technology. You ride a bicycle onto a train, which then goes into a rocket, that takes you to the Moon. (It doesn't have to make sense to be fun!). At the end of the ride they sell you a thumb drive with a picture taken of you during the ride, except the picture is blank, unless you decode the colour table. The bicycle-train-rocket ride exits into a large pavillion full of screens and odd-looking machinery. You can interact with future and past images of yourself, that are cleverly produced with the aid of countless videocameras and holographic projectors placed around the park. When you get home you discover old emails that were sitting in your inbox for months, sent to you by yourself, and saying that if you ever go to the Time theme park you should bring the pictures that you left under the leopard on your desk. Then you lift it up and find photos of yourself standing between Cuegan, taken in "Main Street ᘝᓄᘈᖉᐣ" near the entrance to Botopia.

mrob27 wrote:I like 5 fps best, except for the scenes with the trucks (t-1enh_0111 through t-1enh_0203, and t-1enh_0254 through the current) which I think would be best at about 3 fps. (2 fps is too slow).

Ok, I've added support for ranges in frame length specifications so we can assign them to whole ranges ({0203..0254}) rather than individually, which should make managing this easier.Tomorrow I'll be working on making the input streams for ffmpeg lazy (we only read a file when ffmpeg is asking for more data) so I can patch ImageMagick in and annotate the frame numbers, though I seem to have thrown away the command line I used for such effect (later note to self: it's in the git stash). The way things currently are, I'm afraid I'd spawn a convert for every frame simultaneously.I've also performed some experimental encodings with Daala. The space savings are mind-blowing. Unfortunately the resulting videos are pure gibberish (of the RGB type).

mikrit, your obscure book reference on NP 2398 was glorious! Tonight the Little Wonder and I watched a film about those explorers in which one suffers a physical disability and the others come to his aid in locating a suitable prosthetic.

Where can I pre-order tickets for the Time theme park? I guess I have to

Spoiler:

ask Corinne.In German, standing in line (like you do before you can go on a ride in a theme park, thereby following the First Commandment) is called "Schlange stehen", which literally translates to "snake standing".

Glad you like the theme park ideas, @lmjb1964 (after all, you inspired it!). @ZoomanSP, while you're snake-standing for Zanclean Escape you can buy waterproof chess sets and glue (also, Monomolpy and Snack Time). @ggh, they also sell Internets in the Botopia gift shop, but if you take the Bikeway to OTTityland you can get them for free at The OTTityland Arcade, which is a lot more fun. (Last summer, during the exclusive park development previews for Blitzers, a kid got 9111 Internets by making it through all 143 rounds of Metal Molpies without missing a note. When the park opens to the general public, there will be a time limit on the hotdogs so more guests have a chance to play, but if you have a BlitzPass you can go through the shorter Warteschlange1 and resume your hotdog where you left off.)

AluisioASG wrote:Tomorrow I'll be working on making the input streams for ffmpeg lazy (we only read a file when ffmpeg is asking for more data) so I can patch ImageMagick in and annotate the frame numbers

I spent an unmolpish amount of Time on this. I tried ImageMagick, ffmpeg's drawtext, subtitles.In the end I've settled for simply writing on the images as they arrive.

ggh wrote:I'm so sorry - I fell into that trap again - the trap of not saying anything until I could properly ketchup, and of course, properly ketching up gets harder every day. I've been here, lurking, for the last two weeks, just not saying much.

So have I, for even longer. I'm still here, I've also continued to work on the wiki, though lately I've had to channel more of my time into my FFS search which is still going on.

Proper ketchup and a new wikification report will follow when I get around to it, maybe not all at once.

I've written a lot about the Time theme park. It seems to have set off a latent desire or subconscious creativity that was sitting around for a while, and it has also broken my bOTTeriada writer's block. So that's molpish… Anyway, have a map:

mscha wrote:There's also a Jigsaw Hut where you can do puzzles of otcolored Timeframes and other RELATED imagery, […] However, it is only open in the weekend.

Treeish4 idea! I wasn't sure where this might be positioned, but perhaps it's part of the "unused" building between Molpyland and OTTityland.The Ench*rped Tweeti Room is still under development. During previews, guests didn't seem to enjoy being ch*rped at so much, and the adults-only attraction doesn't fit in too well with the rest of Molpyland (where ImaginOTTifactors originally planned to build it). The show is being rewritten to include talking baobabs and other treeish characters, and laser-lit dancing fountains. The buzz on park fanatic websites suggests that it will appear near one of the hotels, most probably Moroccan Bermview. Anyway, Tweeti Room was to share its building with a restaurant and a couple shops, so I think Jigsaw Hut would use some of that space. You'll have to let us know why it's only open on wipends. (Can puzzles be played in The OTTityland Arcade on other dips?)

The biggest question I'm still working out is what to call this place. "The Zanclean World of Megball and Cuegan" is a bit unwieldy, but has REDUNDANCY, which is molpish. "Temporal Studios Theme Park and Resort" is a bit too generic. I thought of "Sea1 World", but we'd probably get sued for that; I suppose we could get away with "Big1 Sea3 World" or something even more REDUNDANT. I considered "The Timely Adventures of Mrorl and Balthacarius" but decided it was too specific and also unwieldy. That's probably a future attraction for Botopia or elsewhere to the southeast. Any preferences or other name suggestions?

ETA(1,2,3): That heliographtheory does seem to be still in the running. What do you suppose they'll do? Will one Beanie dictate the message verbally to the other, one character at a time? That could take a while. Perhaps they have a short SOS-like code that was already planned in advance, in case their structure starts falling apart. To get the message somebody has to be watching with a theodolite or telescope, but I don't imagine they have people doing that constantly. Perhaps we'll start watching another scene during the time it takes to send/receive this message…

"You just won the (insert championship game here)! What are you going to do now?""I'm going to Time WorldTM!"

I wanted to OTTify a Disneyland map, but haven't had the Time. Thanks for RUNning with the idea, mrob!

And ggh, I went back and forth between "the internets" and "my internets." I decided to go the more personal route, although it does mean mrob got fewer internets. Sorry, mrob! Of course, I can't really be giving away other peoples internets, so I guess that's all right.

Hi, svenman!

And now I must try to excavate some of the surfaces in my house that have gotten covered with stuff. It could take a while.

NewPixBots got ready to activate, they underwent a lightning transformation. In a nanosecond, their little metal eyes turned red, and they began to devour castles. The King was completely unprepared for this.